Long ago my grandfather told me the older one gets, the faster time passes by. When I first heard this observation around age 15 or so, I was somewhat able to grasp the basic concept but had not yet acquired the basic life experience to fully comprehend his wise observation.
I use “wise” as I am now thirty-odd years further down the path of my life and the painful truth of my grandfather’s statement continues to ring true. New days keep rolling around increasingly faster as each new year seems to be shorter than the last.
My wife and I are less than three months apart in age. This small age gap allows for easy comparison and commiseration as time starts to take its toll on us, giving us the opportunity for a truly joint effort in facing the aging process. Naturally many of our milestones of aging are neither simultaneous nor identical; I have nearly escaped having gray hair while she has thoroughly sidestepped the typical middle-age weight gain.
Both of us are aware, via social media, of the goings-on of some of our former cohorts, primarily those from our high-school years. Both of us have been guilty of carefully examining the various pictures these people post. In some cases, but not all, we have realized the years have not been overly kind to these people. This makes us wonder what conditions have manifested in which we can brazenly view the results.
This all leads into a conversation we recently had about automobiles.
With there now being a third driver in our house, the need to again adjust our automotive fleet is rapidly approaching. The extent of adjustment is the biggest question, a quandary that leads into the question in the title.
Long ago in some other article I opined that cars are generally built to mimic a 35 year-old person – mature, where everything functions and there are no leaks, squeaks, or rattles. From that point forward the aging process is wildly divergent.
Like with people, the aging process for automobiles has countless variables. Exercise, environmental realities, and maintenance all play into the automotive aging process the same as it does with people.
One of the beauties with an automobile is how it is perfectly acceptable to kick a figurative member of the family to the curb and replace it. But when is that point reached?
The trigger for this conversation was our 2000 Ford Econoline. It has 133,000 miles, we have owned it for over eleven years, and the slow onset of aging is making itself known. While this van has been featured here many times, it is now being used strictly as an example.
Early last summer the van was having intermittent episodes where the oil pressure gauge read zero for about a quarter mile after a cold start, after which the gauge would jump to normal range. Knowing nothing was wrong with the oil pressure, I tracked down a faulty $15 oil pressure switch. It was an easy repair, taking all of ten minutes.
This was something I have never had to replace before.
Then, in October, we made a trip to visit friends in Kansas City. On the way back, my wife was driving. She commented about the play in the steering. Soon after, our daughter drove it and observed the same thing. It had happened so gradually I had not noticed, but there was indeed play. I tracked it down to a worn drag link. I ordered a new one and a coworker installed it.
This was something I have never had to replace before.
Are either of these cause to get rid of it? For some people it likely would be. But switches go bad and suspension parts wear out, especially those with no grease zerks. But, despite appearances to the contrary, this van is 22 years old. It’s not only old enough to vote, it’s now old enough to legally drink.
It’s not like the van is unreliable; in January we drove it the 750 miles each way to Denver. A cold and semi-snowy voyage, the van ran flawlessly.
Looking for potential replacements and/or enhancements to our fleet brings up another quandary about how old is too old.
In the Fall of 1983, I made a day trip to Memphis, Tennessee, with my parents in their 1983 Plymouth Reliant. Upon our departure, a member of the Arkansas State Police desired to speak with my father. During this discussion about velocity while sitting on the shoulder of I-55, the trooper asked my father what model year the car was. My father confidently replied it was a 1973.
This provided two new experiences. First, it allowed me to see a trooper having a look of confusion. The second was my first insight into how people tend to compress time in their memories.
In my very initial scoping of automotive offerings, I keep finding examples from the 2005 to 2008 timeframe and thinking those don’t seem too old. Then I have to remind myself this is fourteen to seventeen years ago. How old is too old (for me) to shop for a car without reminders of time having elapsed? When my brain catches up, all I can do is think, “duh, 1973 Plymouth Reliant”.
During the course of my life, I have occasionally purchased something for daily to semi-daily use which was older than fifteen years in age. While one of these (but not this fantastic Dodge) was not the smartest move in the history of the world, my need to adjust for the passage of time has me questioning myself about how old is too old when looking to purchase a car.
I realize the need to have a model year cutoff. Anything older is too old. But then there is the part of my brain that kicks in, asking if I am willing to sacrifice some great opportunity that might be presented by a person much older than me, one who has taken care of what they have. It’s quite the conundrum between the rational and frugal parts of my brain. I say that as we’ve all likely seen irrational frugality.
Purchasing older cars has generally been a money maker, with one (identical to this awesome Thunderbird) quintupling my initial investment. But is it always worth it?
The easy way out is to simply purchase something new yet my basic constitution abhors pumping money to a depreciating asset.
The dilemma will no doubt continue unabated. And there is no doubt everyone here has battled some form of this same dilemma.
So how old is too old?
My daily driver is a 1985 Oldsmobile. I can fix it in my sleep. The most reliable car I own is my 1962 F85. There’s nothing on it to break. The most troublesome vehicle I have is also the newest and the only brand new vehicle I’ve ever bought, my 1999 Chevy truck. It has 300,000 miles on it. The electronics are finally to the point that I’m tired of messing with it. I’m replacing it with a 1984 Chevy truck.
Me too. What 1985 model?
I’ve had newer vehicles, they’re not as endearing to me and I end up getting rid of them in short order. There are some brand new vehicles I like, but very few made in the last ~25 years.
How old is too old? I don’t understand the question, and I won’t respond to it.
For me, it’s the natural attrition. Too old is when it gets very difficult to find a clean, low mileage, unmolested example of what I’m looking for as a daily driver, without spending a fortune. For example, I’ve owned several of the Chevy GMT 400 pickups over the years. I would look for another one if I could find one that met my criteria. But hard to believe that the natural aging process has almost eliminated those trucks from daily driver status. You still see a few on the roads, but the herd is thinning. It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I bought my first one brand new in 1989.
Old cars for the hobby and enjoyment are a different story. I’ve owned a few from the 40’s to the 60’s and loved them all.
Much depends on the anticipated usage – i.e. if it’s for you or whoever to use on nicer days but doesn’t have to be depended on at any or all times of day or night or any weather or any distance, then the sky’s the limit, buy what strikes your fancy and likely the older it is, the less money it’ll cost you to fix it (once it’s initially sorted), but probably will require more maintenance and time, which itself perhaps gains greater value as time goes on and less of it remains.
If it’s for the offspring, who might one day have a job or career or other responsibilities that require non-failure to attend, well, I’m pretty much in the camp of the newer the better but at least of an age where Stability Control became standard, which is 2012 for every car in the US with lots of vehicles having it before then. A younger driver may be less confident or have a greater tendency to make a mistake than all of us older, perfect, drivers (sure we are, we’re all still here, blah blah blah!), and if it saves their bacon even once, it has more than paid for itself. And the car is irrelevant anyway, it can be replaced, the driver cannot. The added bonus I suppose is that anything a decade old is likely to be relatively inexpensive to acquire, and if a lower mileage example is found, will still have some good life left in it.
It’s not that much harder or more expensive to maintain and repair a more recent model than an older one (as opposed to “old”) as long as it’s generally of a mass-market nature, and more specifically the Japanese tend to do better on average (there are outliers of course, same goes the other way), at least in my experience.
Lastly, time is money. And for some, worth a lot, so a small monthly payment for something new or almost new that guarantees all the time in the world stays available may be worth more than anything else.
In short, no good or “correct” answer, everyone is different as is their tolerance, needs, budget, skill, and perhaps most important, desire.
“… Lastly, time is money. And for some, worth a lot, so a small monthly payment for something new or almost new that guarantees all the time in the world stays available may be worth more than anything else…”.
I agree.
When I was young and foolish, I thought I had all the time in the world. Well …. I kinda actually did. Trying to fix my $300 very used cars, or trying to find parts (pre-internet), or trying to find a mechanic and then be without a vehicle for a while, were my only choices.
Now, fortunately, I have other choices.
Many others do not.
When I see someone nursing a limping, badly muffled, and badly aging vehicle that may or may not start the next day, I remember my own history and empathetically feel their efforts and fears. And frankly, there but for the grace of God go I.
So, too old for some is not an option.
And for others, too old makes it a collectible.
Jim took most of my thunder with his sage advice. Safety is right up there with reliability in my key criteria. Side air bags and ABS used to be my minimum safety standard, and they still are. Extra points for stability control. Auto-lane keeping and collision braking sounds like a good idea, but I wouldn’t want a first-generation system.
That features list would include most desirable models made 2000-2015, when advanced driving aids were first introduced. What about older cars? I’d love to have a classic Fiat or Mercedes, if cost were no object- but it is, and always will be. That car would be driven so carefully and so few miles that I’d be content with a three-point seat belt. Those would be classified as Classics, and priced accordingly.
Jim, we are remarkably close on our mindset with this. Part of the driving force with the question was do we put our daughter in a vehicle older than her when she needs to haul her harp? And, I am facing the prospect of daughter and wife taking the same 2000 model to South Dakota later this month as they may need to haul said harp.
On the flip side, you know what my most recently acquired pickup is…it goes, at a maximum, five miles from the house. Totally different expectations, thus different mindset.
I think you’re at the point you need to seriously consider the lowest mileage modern minivan the budget allows or a midsize pickup truck, of course paying close attention to dimensions of the vehicle vs the luggage in this case. From what I understand this trip is unlikely to be an isolated occurrence but the harp limits the choices for the best vehicle to be acquired in the medium term. It’s probably akin to needing to transport a Great Dane in moderate comfort. Not big enough to justify a trailer, but no lap child either.
If your oh-so-lovable big white van (which I do like, you know I do! Someone should buy it, it’s great!) was mine (it is not and it will not be, so sorry), I’d have no problem driving it and if something were to go wrong, enthusiastically fix it with materials likely easily found at the roadside. However if my wife and daughter were driving it quite some distance and something were to go wrong my enthusiasm level would be quite a bit lower.
You might also want to explore the cost of renting something for this particular trip.
And lastly I admire the level of admitted “range anxiety” your newest acquisition poses. No further than you can walk home in time for dinner. Sort of how I view Frontier Airlines.
It’s a hard one to answer. Too many variable. My ’66 F100 always starts and runs; the last time it didn’t was a very long time ago. Well, it did munch its transmission, but it was well over 50 years old by then.
Ask me how the 2003 Tracker does in the coming EXBRO trip. The a/c is out, and I’m stumped as to how to fix it. Anybody got ideas?
But I’m a bit confused about your father and his “1973” Reliant. You say: “The second was my first insight into how people tend to compress time in their memories.” Wouldn’t that be the other way around? As in, if he had been driving a 1973 Plymouth, he would have said “1983 Plymouth”, since it seemed like he had owned it for a shorter period of time than in actuality? Or am I missing something (in a senior moment)?
My guess is that he simply transposed “1983” to “1973”, in a typical moment of confusion. Happens to the best of us.
Nervousness or feeling under pressure when stopped by a cop likely factors in too.
Yup. I tend to feel a bit of nervousness and confusion when I get stopped too. “Officer; I’m sure the speedometer said I was only doing 65; it couldn’t have been 130”.
My dad did the same thing while showing off his new (at the time) 2004 Focus to his neighbor.
Neighbor: “What year is it?”
Dad: “It’s a ’94.”
Neighbor: “Really? It’s that old?”
Me: “He meant ’04”.
I think he was just so used to all his cars being 1990-something models up to that point he just automatically said “94” out of habit. Sort of the same phenomenon as writing the wrong year on your checks in January.
If I were going to get a 1966 car today, the only real candidate would be a Volvo 122. 35 years ago I would have also put the Peugeot 404 on the shortlist.
About time compression…I fully see what you say. The way I was thinking about it was he had compressed his life by one-quarter, as he was 40 but thinking only 30 years had elapsed.
As far as his being nervous…any nervousness he ever gets comes about from the prospect of having to spend money. Nothing else really affects him.
I think that it depends on what the end use of the car is. If the car is purchased as a restoration, hobby/ project car then it doesn’t matter quite so much the shape is in. Just check out the Turnpike Cruiser show car resto that is linked in a post below.
If the car is purchased as regular transportation, than the considerations are different. There are older cars that are consistently maintained over their lifetimes, but most see less maintenance as the age. All systems in a car are going to wear out eventually, it depends on how involved the owner wants to be with an older vehicle. There is a lot of constant monitoring, anticipation, planning, and fixing that needs to be done with an older car. Also the type of safety equipment incorporated into its design also matters.
Of course the easiest choice is a new car, next would be a nearly new car. But these cost more money, if the money is not available, or a person prefers not to spend it, then compromises will need to be made.
I’m in the process of divesting myself of a few old cars. My XJ6 is already gone. My ’51 Jaguar restoration project is slated to be gone in a week or so. Probably one more will be on it’s way out also. I bought a later model very low mileage vehicle last Summer, and that’s become my main vehicle.
My intention is to cut back on all the car wrangling, and leave more energy for other, around the house projects. I don’t like spending money on car payments, but I do like having a nice reliable car.
My oldest daughter just turned 15, so she’ll likely be driving soon – and this coming change in family circumstances had generated much debate in our household regarding which of our cars she’ll likely drive.
My Daily Driver is a 12-year old Odyssey minivan with 150,000 mi. It serves us very well, and aside from a few inevitable age-related issues, it performs without much hassle. We also have our 1995 Thunderbird, which accumulates only about 2,000 miles per year right now. Chances are that our daughter will split her time between these two cars… both seem reasonably reliable and safe, and with the current economy, I can’t see replacing either of them without a real slap-in-the-face reason.
Our other car is a 2018 Sedona (45,000 mi.) that we use largely for long-distance trips, and I assume that in a few years, the Sedona will move into the Odyssey’s role of my daily driver, and we’ll get a new car to use as our main travel vehicle. Hopefully that’ll wait for a while.
In the past, I’ve generally replaced cars when they’ve just become too much of a hassle to justify keeping – frequently a major problem (a/c problems on both my Contour and Crown Victoria, for example) accompanied by several minor problems.
I would say it depends on the car. My daughter is still driving her Grandma’s 1998 Civic, and it still starts runs and drives reliably after probably 7 years of relative neglect under her care. My middle son is still driving the other Grandma’s 06 Buick Lacrosse. He has taken better care of the Buick and it still looks nice and has been reliable for him.
I think there are still some nice Grandma-style Hondas out there from the late 90s that could be good cars, but I would move quite a bit newer with stuff that lacks a Honda or Toyota badge.
As you know, I have been a proponent of buying cars favored by the elderly because they are often available quite reasonably (no demand) and nice ones are common (high supply). Maybe one of the later Grand Marquis? Or a Lacrosse/LeSabre from the mid 00s? The early Honda Fit from 07-09 is a good one too, but in this fuel price environment is likely to be fairly expensive. I guess my final answer is the place that has always been my own personal sweet spot – 12-15 years old and 90-125k miles.
My oft-mentioned, elderly-owned ’98 Olds had just 37K on it when I bought it a year ago. It took a year of dealing with parts that didn’t wear out — but aged out — to where I’m fairly confident in its reliability. Besides seals and lubricated parts, cars have more and more plastic injection molded pieces that crack and deform over time, even if the car sits unused. I barely saved the 3800 Series II V6 from catastrophic hydro-lock, thanks to a Jalopnik writer before me who didn’t get to hers in time and wrote about it. It had nothing to do with high-mileage, and everything to do with an original intake manifold plenum that is the bane of these otherwise bullet-proof engines. Your 90-125K mile window on a clean example strikes me as reasonable, J.P., since many parts on a car like that will probably have been changed out — for improved versions, in some cases.
What needs to be inspected or done to the intake manifold plenum?
I’m a huge fan of the 3800 series II and II too.
The Series II engine’s upper intake manifold can leak internally where coolant flows through it, in a channel toward the back left end of the engine. When that happens, the leak gets progressively worse over time. You smell coolant, and your reserve tank empties but you can’t figure out where it’s going. There might be no visual evidence of it in the exhaust because it’s just a trickle. As the leak worsens, there’s enough coolant getting into your cylinders that the engine eventually, and quite suddenly, starts to run very rough, then hydro-locks if you don’t attend to it. If you are on the highway, that’s gonna be right away, but I was at idle when it began, and it bought some time. I was able to limp home 2 miles with billows of white smoke behind. Over the run, it cleared itself somewhat, but the coolant kept leaking internally after shutdown, and billowed out again when I ventured to the shop (all downhill). I had ordered a replacement plenum, and those have a design update with a steel sleeve in that manifold coolant channel that prevents a recurrence. My guy opened the engine to find the cylinders full of coolant, but after he did the repair, there was — fortunately — no glycol in the sump. The car runs like a top, and the overflow tank level is totally stable, although there’s a faint coolant smell that will probably stick around for a while. Series II supercharged engines used an aluminum plenum (also used on Series III engines, I think), and did not suffer from hydro-lock as far as I know.
So is replacing the plenum with the new design something worth doing to NA Series II 3800s that haven’t yet developed a leak, to prevent this from happening? These are such smooth, quiet, efficient, and durable engines otherwise.
I’m typing on a fifteen year old wireless keyboard, and there’s a thirty-one year old wired bending spring keyboard in the drawer next to me that needs a membrane replacement. I have ninety-five year old Solingen steel butcher’s knives in the cupboard, and I regularly use eighty-seven and eighty-nine year old monogrammed cotton tea towels. My other desktop computer is thirteen years old, with significant power-electronics component replacements, and processor, and drive upgrades, but it runs Windows 10 (and my ca. 2005 prosumer video and audio production peripherals) totally fine. My stereo stack is between fifteen and forty-three years old, depending on component, and also works fine.
But I got rid of the fourteen year old car I’d vowed to drive into the ground because of one repair too many. It’s still running in Southern California, but I lost the stomach for the constant repairs – and I was walking past its beached peer (ca. 2003, so, nineteen years old now) in Rego Park this morning, and its irritated – one might say irascibly annoyed – owner described a litany of problems it had forcing its repose.
I *also* have a neighbor who succumbed to a yen for big wagons and he bought a ’92 Caprice about whose spare part availability he regularly bitches.
My feeling – ten years. Unless you are Jay Leno.
Could your 31 year old keyboard be a buckling beam? They’re worth some money, though not sure what membrane would be on them.
I’m very much like you, I don’t need to have the latest/greatest, probably because my needs are modest, and also because I like to fix things. Doesn’t need to be cars, and I don’t need to have (lack of) experience. I get a kick out of figuring out how to fix things, though I admit my track record is spotty, but part of it might be that some things just aren’t designed to be fixed…though that seldom stops me from trying (just don’t succeed some of the time). Often it is lack of parts or something else breaks while I’m trying to fix the original problem. I’m pretty good, but I don’t hold a candle to one of my co-workers who got his refrigerator going when a starter relay went, he characterized its operation and figured out it was similar to an incandescent light bulb, which he promptly attached in its place until he could get the actual replacement part in hand…didn’t lose any food (of course his wife probably gave him a hard time about having a hazardous situation having high potential exposed outside the domain of the refrigerator, albeit temporarily). No, his day job is NOT repairing refrigerators (neither was mine but I also indulged in working on them). He just likes to mess around with things, even outside his “normal” area.
Time is an odd thing, as I get older I find I recall events from a long time ago better than ones that happened more recently…the years all seem compressed into one close by, but my younger ones were distinct, probably because more “unique” things happened to me in my younger years. People put emphasis on time as you get older saying “you shouldn’t bother”…with things like changing oil, fixing things, etc. I have a different tack, I really enjoy bothering with them…well maybe not so much changing my oil, but it gives me an excuse to look around underneath my car to see if something untoward is going on. I guess I could jack it up without changing the oil but to me, might as well change the oil at the frequency I do it. Likewise, someone else could mow my lawn, but I also take the opportunity to look at my house while I’m doing it…maybe find wasp nest or loose shingle…yes I could just look at my house without mowing the lawn, but it makes me feel a lot funny just looking without doing something else at the time.
Your point about “never had that go before” rang a bell with me, from my perspective, I’ve owned nothing but VWs in 41 years, all of them the same size (2 Golfs, 1 Scirocco)…of course they aren’t the same, and the components differ, but I’ve never seemed to have the same issues with any of the cars, they all seemed to have different problem areas. Part of that might be due to increased complexity, my 2000 Golf has power windows/locks that my Scirocco lacked, likewise it has a sunroof, and they’ve been problematic. These things I just live with, not worth it to me to try to fix…likewise, I had a small bulb go out inside my composite headlight…I started to think about fixing it, but then thought that if I mess it up, I might need to replace the headlight ($300 or maybe a bit less at salvage yard) since I could easily cause a short due to wire insulation degrading. I can pass inspection without the small lights (that I guess are for some other market than US) so I live with that as well. But the “major” items or at least “frequent” items that have gone awry have been different in each car.
I don’t set out to buy an older car, but keep mine long enough that they become older. On my current car I’ll admit I’m in denial, I probably should have swapped it for something a bit newer, since no one in my family can drive a stick and I’m getting older, and it has been a (fortunately temporary) issue for me, but I really should get an automatic, but I don’t want one. So I’ll likely keep putting money into my current one, which I have, a new power steering rack, also said stick stopped transmitting motion to my selector shaft on the transaxle requiring new cable assembly which wasn’t inexpensive either. My only car is going on 22 years. I’ve owned 5 cars in 47 years of driving (not too linear, some much shorter time than others).
I’ll finish on a biological example, my dear departed Father was concerned about his health, but the thing that did him in wasn’t really what he was afraid of. He thought he’d have a stroke (they happen in his/my family) or go on dialysis (he was a long-term diabetic, he had degraded but not terrible kidney function). He did actually go on dialysis short-term right before he died, but it wasn’t due to his kidneys per se, really it was his heart that did him in, as it couldn’t pump the volume of blood through his kidneys in the time needed to get rid of the waste. Just this week, my Mother had a stroke (fortunately mild). So with cars, the problems we end up having often aren’t the ones we worry about…but of course we can’t trade ourselves in (except a transplant) to deal with the degradation due to aging. Like cars, part of it is what we’re born with (can’t do anything about that) and part is how we keep it going (only part we have any control over).
The smart answer: “I’ll tell you after I (or my car) dies for good”…we’d like to know but it is not for us to do so ahead of time.
As others have stated above, how old is too old varies with the purpose, place and driver, plus your willingness to put up with the constant minor fixes that the automotive aging process requires, let alone dealing with any potential major problems.
For new drivers, I would recommend something that is safe and reliable, but probably at least five years old, or worth less than half its original MSRP. There is a good chance that the car will see at least one accident (speaking from experience – I owned one car for about 30 days before my daughter totaled it in an accident) so having modern safety equipment (airbags, antilock brakes, ESC, etc.) is imperative. At the same time, you want to minimize the financial hit from high insurance premiums charged young drivers, so something boring and fairly slow-selling, like a mid-size sedan, makes more sense than the Jeep Wrangler or Camaro that a teenage driver might really want instead.
Prior to the pandemic, I would have recommended something 5-7 years old, such as a Camry, Sonata, Accord, etc. With used car values currently at all-time highs, you might have to look at 7–10-year-old cars to keep the price down.
I drove my (stock, 40hp, 6V) ’64 Beetle as a DD in Atlanta traffic from around 1994-2000, so it was 36 years old when I sold it on. Of course, I was only slightly older myself, and youth and enthusiasm were sufficient to meet the needs of a vintage car.
Since those days, our vehicle purchases were of ones with lower miles and maybe a year to a few years old. Some we ran out well past 200K miles, others moved on after 120K or so. Our most recent purchases have been new, although the TourX was a year-old lot leftover with 39 miles on the odo and a hefty discount.
That said, I can walk out right now and my 72 year-old Ford 8N tractor will start on the first or second turn. It’s been mostly trouble-free in the 22 years I’ve owned it. Quality maintenance parts available is the biggest challenge I’ll have keeping it running. Most stuff available today (like points) is junk from The Land Of Almost Right.
Evan’s theory of time: When you are 1 year old, and another year passes, you’ve added 100% to your life, and it seems like a very long time. By the time you are 50 and a year goes by, you’ve only added 2% to your life and that doesn’t feel like very much at all.
As for daily drivers, it *highly* depends on the particular vehicle. My current daily driver is a 2002 Chevrolet Silverado with all of 102k on the clock. Although the body looks as though it spent years being operated by Federal employees (which it was) it operates in a way that is insignificantly different from when it was brand new. But this is a vehicle that was designed to be “rode hard and put away wet”, and I can’t see any reason I couldn’t drive it another 10 years if I chose to. Contrast that with the year I got my license, 1980, when driving a 20-year-old 1960 model meant you were either broke or an enthusiast, and you certainly couldn’t consider driving it another 10 years!
When you are 1 year old, and another year passes, you’ve added 100% to your life, and it seems like a very long time
Yeah, that second year seemed like an eternity to me. 🙂
Seriously, I agree with you. There’s another factor too: there’s fewer truly new experiences as you get older, so things tend to become more routine. For me a week spent doing my usual routine at home goes by in a flash; not so if spent driving across the wilds of Nevada or such. The degree of relative change tends to diminish with time.
If I remember your personal history correctly, Paul, you were living in Austria at the time. From what I hear, time passes more slowly in Europe 🙂
But then why are they 11 hours ahead of us?
It’s because of the Metric System.
Oh, I see; they use metric hours instead of Imperial ones.
Hours, yes; also seconds and minutes…weeks and months…metric gallons and inches and feet…you have to remember, it’s a godless commie socialist hell over there, so they even measure their vacuum cleaner efficiency using metric units! I don’t know what the SI unit is called or what the conversion is from dirt per minute, tho.
I’m really into this. Veritasium channel on Youtube (among others) ticks off several factors that can make time seem to pass more quickly as we age. I am particularly attracted to the factor of Newtonian perception of time. What appear — to us — as the staccato movements of birds is the opposite from what they experience, relative to ours. To them, we are barely moving. In the same vein, as our nervous impulses slow down with age, Newton’s Law suggests that the duration of a moment they convey seems to speed up. When people are asked to guess when a minute has passed, younger people can come close, older folks go “long”. If an old person lives 10 years to the second after a stopwatch is started, it might feel like only 8, despite what the numbers on the dial tsay.
I’ve read a bit about these factors; very fascinating. There’s invariably a biological explanation behind our various experiences.
Although I have very much experienced the generalized sensation of the years passing quicker, I still have a quite good internal clock for shorter time periods. Maybe that’s going to go next?
I drive a 1998 Oldsmobile “88” that replaced my 2007 Outback. It has endeared itself to me with its comfort and surprisingly manageable handling. When you cut to the chase, “too old” is about when your needs can no longer be met in a reasonable time frame because the car is out of service for a repair for longer than you can do without it, or when your aging brain can benefit from fail-safe tech that it doesn’t have (Having a back up car helps, but you can also find yourself, as I do, with 6 cars and trucks, all of which need repair at the same time.
If your skills don’t go much beyond changing out worn parts, you need a mechanic who will take on a job that might require your car to sit for two weeks in their yard while waiting for a gizmo, or might put him/her into the annoying position of tracking down a pesky electronic or Emmissions fault while there are several more customers waiting in the wings who matter just as much to success of the garage. My 29-year old Econoline’s mechanic couldn’t replace a right front caliper, because the supply chain sources whom he relies upon for good quality parts told him he would have to send mine in for a rebuild. I found one online in an unknown chain and sent him pictures, and he confirmed it should fit. If I can take that burden off him, it’s all the better, and I’ll do it for as long as I can.
But you can’t out-think getting old. Past the age of 70, you start to realize that your capacity for quick thinking will be gnawed away, bit by bit by “the process”. In order to drive safely, you begin to accept the idea of lane-changing alerts, peripheral cameras and other fail-safe mechanisms that might help you stay behind the wheel deeper into old age without putting yourself or others into jeopardy. So, “too old” is about, “How old a car can I find that will still have enough safety tech to make up for brain drain?”
I’ll say that for the purposes of being driven by the wife or kids, 10-15 years would be the limit I’d be comfortable with unless it was a car that had proven its reliability to me. Generally speaking, there’s just too much that can go wrong too easily with an older car that could leave them stranded somewhere at the worst possible time or place.
That said, one of my personal daily drivers is a 1996. I’m willing to take that risk with myself, my wife doesn’t drive it except in exceptional circumstances. I think anything up to around 60 years old could potentially make a good vehicle to drive, as others have pointed out. The key to doing this, though, is redundancy: you have to have multiple vehicles so if your old car has to go out of service for a time, you still have wheels.
Really good question Jason and it makes one think. I’m of a similar age as you and I also find myself thinking that, say, 1997 wasn’t that long ago . . .except it is.
Our fleet consists of a new crossover SUV which never needs anything, and my daily driver is a 2012 F350 which I again need to remind myself is ten years old. At 285,000 km it’s starting to have little things go wrong.
I think my tolerance is limited when I have to do something, and it starts to take time from other things I could be doing, then I consider it too old for front line duty. Having said that, some of “other things” consist of repairing and restoring my ’78 and ’79 F250s – which I do because I want to, not because I have to. Similar to RLPlaut’s thoughts, there was a time when I thought my time wasn’t that valuable, now I realize it is.
Great question and interesting responses
How old is too old? I have a 2004 John Deere L120 garden tractor, and just last week I had to replace the magnetic clutch for the mower deck. $140 for the part, replaced it myself. But given this is the only major malfunction to date, seems reasonable. And my 1/2 acre plot isn’t exactly the greens at Augusta.
Lots of variables, but we try to buy at 3-5 years old and dispose of cars at 15 years old.
After 15 electrical failures seem to increase, and crucially parts availability gets worse. I recall my father in law telling me our Windstar was now on the “Ford legacy parts program “ or something like that, which meant they were now longer lead time and higher priced.
As we both know, vintage cars are not good daily drivers: even if parts availability is good there’s a lot of legwork and waiting involved.
These days a 20 year old car is almost average and I see lots of 90s pickups in daily use. I think the answer has to be “it depends” based on a variable scale of level of use, required features (airbags, OBDII EFI vs Carburetor) and parts availability. We have a 2002 truck and a 2003 car and both have airbags, ABS, OBDII and good parts availability from O’Reilly, Rock Auto and the local salvage yard so I’m OK running these until something major fails. I did the same with our 97 Saturn, driving it until the transaxle blew in 2017.
Something older or less well supported may not be viable. I think there’s also a curve involved where some 90s and 2000s vehicles are not viable because they depend on electronics that are no longer available. A glaring example is the Cadillac XLR LED taillight which is no longer available and has to be repaired by specialists .
As they say it is all relative, and in this case I’d say it is based on expected use.
The average age of a car on the road has just passed 12 years.
If this car is for the new driver to get to and fro for the duration of HS or if there is question as to if they will manage to not trash it, then something on the far side of that 12 year mark is appropriate, up to say 20 yo for the right car.
Now if instead the idea is that this car should take them through until they are able to buy their own car then something on the closer side of that average is probably a better idea, say 6-8 yo.
The rust belt adds another variable. When I was swapping the summer tires back onto my wife’s 2012 Mustang last month, I looked around at the inner wheelwells/rockers and mentioned to her that the clock was starting to tick. There’s a certain amount of shabbiness I’ll deal with in a daily driver, but past a certain point, I’m out.
Regarding mileage, since we both commute on higher speed roadways, I set 140,000 miles as the limit. Above that, little things start going wrong, and I hate being forced to repair a car on a freezing cold night because we have to get to work the next day.
Rust is indeed a variable. That’s a large part of why I sold my ’01 Crown Victoria in 2012 is due to some corrosion on the rocker panels. That is also why I dumped my ’07 F-150.
In turn, our 2000 Ford van is spotless underneath. My coworker who replaced the drag link was shocked by how good it looks underneath. We’ve only driven it in snow once, which was our trip to Denver back in January. Otherwise if we go anywhere when it’s snowy, we usually take the pickup – and it shows.
The pickup in the photograph? Update and details are needed.
I suspect the answer can be calculated in a similar way to that process that defines that the ideal number of cars to be owned is usually n+1, where n is the number of cars currently owned…..
Looking at daily drivers, I suspect the best value for money is between 12 and 24 months, having let someone else (a dealer, loyal customer or lease/hire co) take the early depreciation. Worked for me 4 times in a row.
And old? I’m not sure there’s a universal limit now – a 20+ year old Ford (and many others) could easily serve as a dependable daily driver. Mechanical reliability (or least dependability – will it get you to work?) is not the issue it was, and neither is the tin worm.
For a classic, as old as necessary.
Too old? For me there’s two criteria. Condition and safety.
For collectible cars, condition is key especially if parts are hard to come by. Neglect, weather, wear and damage can make even relatively modern cars too far gone to be worthwhile, even for fix-it projects.
For daily driver use, older often means more simple and easier to repair and maintain. Newer means safer, better at avoiding accidents and more likely to protect the occupants if one occurs. So it’s tricky to find a balance, although there’s many 80s cars that fit the bill.
But I draw the line at 1968 models. Collapsible steering columns , 3 point seat belts and dual braking systems are bare minimum requirements for a daily driver. As we know, many pre 68 cars lacked these features.
A lot of it has to do with the brand. When I bought my 2000 Acura TL in 2011, I was told by all asunder that it was going to be a reliability nightmare because of the transmission and it being too old. I drove it for six years and had nary a problem with it. Hondas and Toyotas tend to last a long time. Chrysler, Ford and GM less so.
As Jim mentioned above, having reliable, economical wheels really isn’t all that expensive when compared to the price of wrenching on an old car. The transmission on my TL was on its way out and replacement was going to be $4000+. I put that money into my Golf.It can be safely stated that the TL would have cost at least another $5000 in maintenance since I had neglected so much, so that is $9000 towards my Golf, or one third of what I paid for it.
Since I come from a garage background, just the smell of old cars gives me PTSD and I never want to clean grease off my hands again. I saw loads of customers pumping tons of money into beaters. There were even some cases where I told the customer that it was not worth spending $1000 on a $100 car. Very few heeded my advice and we made lots of money. Well, we made good money until old folks stopped buying GM cars.
At this point, I would consider 15 years as a max, and that is pushing it. Vehicle technology
Specifically acceleration and braking have improved so much as to render older vehicles,
in many situations, hazardous to all concerned. My current daily driver, and what finally
Pushed me to accept what I had really known for years (maybe a decade) a 1992 Nissan
Truck, is simply to slow to merge with modern traffic, and has brakes not intended for
highway speeds that often push 90mph. I did order my own new version of a 40 year old
Truck to replace it, with no power windows, mirrors, locks, key ignition, vinyl floor.
To sum up, any vehicle designed for 55mph limits just won’t cut it today.
I am with Aaron65, rust is a huge factor for those in less friendly climates. Typically I get rid of my daily driver once the rust starts to get a head of me. I keep my daily drivers much longer than my wife’s cars. Her cars we tend to sell off after between 6 and 7 years in age, so rust isn’t really a factor on them. We did keep he ’99 Civic to 11 years old and it was starting to rust (I replaced a fender due to rust). Her 6 year old Outback will be traded next year, which actually had two of it’s doors replaced under warranty for premature rust.
My previous two daily drivers were my ’85 Olds 88 and a ’93 Chev Suburban. Both made it to about the 20 year mark or so before I decided to cut my losses. The Olds was still relatively low mileage and mechanically sound. The problems that cropped up before sold it were mostly rust related, like replacing the rusted out brake lines. While it still looked solid from the outside, structural rust was setting in and it was time for the car to go. My Suburban had about 400,000 kms and was also still mechanically reliable. I was starting to question how many more miles I’d get out of the original 4L60E and the 8.5″ locking diff before they blew up, but the 350 was rock solid (didn’t use any oil). Rust also started to set in, including the windshield frame (causing a water leak). I decided with the mileage and rust it was time to sell.
My current daily driver Toyota truck is 14 years old with about 265K kms on it and it is still rock solid. If I continue my past practice, I got another 6 years or so to go. As long as it stays reliable and rust free, I will keep it that long because I really like this truck. I am also not a fan of the current crop of pickups I’d have to replace it with.
I don’t have a theory or answer to the question, but I loved reading this. It’s so true that each passing year represents an even smaller percentage of one’s life lived up to that point. This is why I remember things from the 2005 – 2008 bracket (referenced in the essay?) as if they’re not as long ago as they actually are. “1973 Plymouth Reliant”-syndrome, all day.
I’m not quite sure how old a vehicle would be too old, for those too old to be able to secure an auto protection plan like Car Shield. Vehicles are only going to get more expensive, though, from everything I’ve read.
One of the best QOTDs posed Jason, and at 48 I concur with your musings.
We asked ourselves ‘how old is too old’ last year when our 2006 Peugeot 307 SW died. At the time our fleet was the 307, a 2016 Peugeot 508 RXH, and my magnificent elderly 1989 Ford Sierra. The 307 had been reliable until 2020 when it reached 220,000km. The only repairs required in the previous decade were one wheel bearing and the a/c condensor. Yet from 220,000-225,000km, all hell broke loose. It needed a replacement radiator, brake discs, a/c compressor, and transmission. We nearly didn’t replace the trans but figured a 14-year-old car wasn’t too old. But over the following 5-6 months the p/w started playing up and the keyless entry stopped working, and when the fuel pump died, we realised that the repair would cost over half the value of the car. So 14 became too old and we sold the car to the garage who replaced the fuel pump and on-sold it.
When looking for a replacement, ‘how old is too old’ was top of mind. Living on a few acres in a rural area with some rougher roads, a Commodore or Falcon ute would have been ideal for our hauling/towing needs, but everything in our budget was either the same age as the 307 and with higher mileage, or lower mileage but significantly older. In the end we decided the 307’s many good points were worthwhile so we simply bought another Peugeot – a 2014 308 SW. 168,000km, but one owner from new and full service history. It’s been faultless so far and has all the safety and convenience features of a new car. So 8 years old? Not too old.
But the 33-year-old Sierra? Well it’s quite obvious Ford never intended them to last anywhere near that long. Everything still works, but nothing works as well as a modern car, and when things stop working they have to be repaired because new parts are generally unavailable. Last year the a/c compressor was rebuilt for the second time in 8 years, and the car has been off the road since last September because the ABS light is on, which renders cars unroadworthy in NZ. Last time the light came on, in 2015, the repairs took months because the model-specific parts were almost unobtainable. So despite being 15 years younger than I am, the Sierra is too old. Although, if it was a base model with no extras, I’m sure 33 would be just fine, so perhaps it can be said that how old is too old is relative to the complexity of the vehicle’s features!
Too old is when you can no longer find good used body or interior parts at U pull it and you don’t want to do the repairs within reason yourself due to time, finances or you phyically can no longer crawl around your daily driver.
Well, I’m older than Jason but still a bit younger than Paul. Since retiring ten years ago, I feel like time has gone slowly, in a good way. I feel much healthier and have some great memories and experiences from the last ten years which seem more significant than say, those from the first ten years after I graduated from college. Even though those ten years long ago included lots of professional experiences, various relationships, home ownership, death of a parent and more.
As for cars, I think it’s very dependent on the vehicle and one’s usage. I loved the size of my 1997 Toyota T100 XtraCab, I liked the powertrain, and the ride, handling, brakes etc were fine for what it was. But the lack of rear doors for back seat access and deteriorating interior parts, unavailable new or in decent shape from junkyards or aftermarket, moved me into a (much) newer truck, a 2016. If the ‘97 had the suicide door setup of the later Toyota extended cab trucks I’d have sunk the money into custom upholstery and might still own it. In general, I think there’s a sweet spot with features like ABS, OBD2, good A/C, but without touch screens, active safety features with cameras and radar, that would be fine for most purposes. Our oldest car is 7 years old, but our kids drive 14 and 21 year old cars and I don’t worry at all. Of course, both were bought new by me and well-maintained for 8 and 16 years respectively 😀.
I’m biased but, “I’m too old” as far as I’m concerned.
Funny, I’ve posted “How old does a car have to be to be reliable” on a BMW forum I’m very active on. Suggesting of course that cars that are less than new, or even late model, but newer than say the 80’s or early 90’s, have enough electronics subject to possible failure on a long, say 4K plus road trip, to be questionable. Again, I’m a 70’s-80’s BMW fanatic, know them well, but if the car is in generally good condition, there’s only a few things that are going to stop them, and if you have a spare or two, you’ll keep going. My son had a Chevy Tahoe, 2007, IIRC for some time. Dealer maintained even. A couple of years ago it started acting up, barely running. The dealer said it was the engine ECU. A replacement took weeks to get. And it wasn’t much better. Then it got worse again. Literally, he traded it in on a Hyundai hybrid, when he really wanted a new pickup, and has been laughing his way to the bank with the current fuel prices.
But my take is, very roughly, 93-2013 cars are a crap shoot. Not new enough to be newish even, but still with enough electronics to sink them at random.
My shortest ownership period was my ’99 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The seat just killed my back and I lasted about 18 months before it was gone.
My shortest ownership of a vehicle that finally pushed me over the edge to the, “That’s it, no more!” problems point was my ’77 Dodge “Macho” Power Wagon, bought with 11 miles on it. From day one, problem after problem. Loose bolts, terrible welds, electrical issues (the bulhead connector on the firewall had water inside it and was all corroded 3 months after I bought it), leaks everywhere it could leak from. The loose bolts were an easy fix. My best friend and I went to town with wrenches and tightened everything up. The worst welds were on the roll bar, which I took off, had it sandblasted (The paint was a joke) and rewelded. We painted it with spray touch up paint and it looked better than it did brand new, and with the better welds, might actually have saved me in a rollover. I tolerated it for 4 years. Along the way, it had a transmission rebuild at 24K, the 360 engine ate a cam while under warranty (I knew the tech and we snuck the “Purple” cam into it instead of the factory replacement). Nothing in that engine was machined more than “close”, and I had leaks of coolant, oil, and a couple of times, gas. The electrical issues caused 2 fires. Why didn’t I let it burn? I don’t remember what it was in June of ’81 that finally pushed me over the edge. I was driving home, and it was on Tropicana and Boulder Hwy in Vegas. Whatever it was, I totally exploded, punching the “Tuff” steering wheel until it broke, and walking in the door of my house yelling, “That POS is gone! It’s out of here!”. In about 4 weeks, it was gone, traded in on a ’79 Trans Am I’ve written about in a post that turned into an article. That car was pretty much bulletproof and only had a few real problems over the 6 years I had it. It’s still around in the Toledo area, with a nice, better than factory (Hard to imagine worse, the truck above had better paint)paint job. The engine is untouched from what I had done and did to it, but it has had another transmission job and has a new upgraded stereo.
For the summer we’re using a 2001 Cherokee that’s pushing 250K miles as a daily driver while my daughter has one of the 2017 Bolts in Virginia. Last spring I got rid of the 2013 Dart (just shy of 100K miles) because it was costing too many maintenance dollars for the miles it was getting driven. The 1944 Willy’s Jeep in the garage has been getting some weekend use recently and so far starts when asked (on it’s mostly original 6 volt electrical system)
IMO, vehicle safety is the most important consideration for choosing a car for your children. Jim Klein mentioned ESC as being mandated as standard starting in the 2012 model year.
Expanding on that, here is a list of recommended vehicles for teens from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Consumer Reports: https://www.iihs.org/ratings/safe-vehicles-for-teens?
I’d be gifting the offspring with the VW Passat. New enough to be safe and relatively reliable. Not so new to be extravagant for a brand new driver.
Hmm, too old could be a two part question. There is the one part that deals with a car being the daily driver and one part that deals with buying an “old” classic. My daily drivers are known to be a 2004 Focus (4 days), a 91 626 (2days), and 2004 Le Sabre (monthly). Although the Le Sabre was used yesterday just in time to be rear ended by a brand new Tesla. I’m still super pissed off and will do a short COAL after it is repaired. If it had been my Focus or Mazda my temper would know no bounds. Maintenance techs due for those two.
Joker in the deck? A 13 year old who is 3 years away from driving.
As far as “old” classics my oldest is the 65 F100 which is finally done with the dual master. Drive it to L.A. is no problem except for the sheer pain in using a 65 truck. So it isn’t a daily driver, although I see those on Craigslist say “this 65 Dart would be a great daily driver for one’s daughter.” Yeah, in what world other than Daniel’s? There is going to be a conversation this Saturday regarding a 65 Bonneville, with the 389-4V, that someone has and wants to sell. Right person who preserves gets it for less than four numbers. Great interiors in these cars with red oxide patina showing through light blue paint. He keeps the 62 Bonnie, 66 Catalina, and 81 Bonnie. The 65 donated the 8 lug wheels to the Catalina and now isn’t needed but is too nice to think of parting. What to do???
Great question that I have been dealing with recently!
In the UK we replaced my wife’s XC60 T6 (9 years old, only 45,000 miles, but a few recent age related problems) with a 2 year old Maserati Levante, which is really nicely built and finished. Good age to buy, as depreciation is steep with luxury vehicles, meaning that this was not quite as extravagant as it sounds. We both love it.
We also need a second car there, so I have been mulling over this very question.
As it is to transport the most precious humans and canines in my life, safety is really important, limiting the age of vehicle. Reliability is also essential, so needs to be something well proven. Needs to carry bikes, dogs, etc., so not too small.
Answer: a used Skoda Yeti – post 2014 facelift – narrow enough for the Devon lanes, enough ground clearance to lightly off-road and lots of space. Good reliability record (VW parts bin engineering) and modern enough to have all the expected safety and convenience items. Also, I just plain like the design, which is unfussy, whilst possessing lots of character.
The quality of the 2022 Benz E Class wagon I had was so bad that it was returned after 250kms from new(!). Not all new cars are good, safe – especially if the brakes and headlamps don’t work properly, or dependable – the gearbox felt as if it was on its way out) and the paint and interior finish was unacceptable…..